/lit/ - Literature

>>21318111
>heart drawn like this <3
retarded painting.

>>21318111
>>21318145

>>21318145
I know it's symbolic but I've always thought this looked stupid in Catholic paintings, e.g. the "sacred heart" of Jesus.

>>21318145
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT LOOK UP “SYMBOLISM”, BRO

Oldest depiction of Augustine, 6th century.

For me it's Origen.

>>21318145
>>21318157
kek but isn't <3 supposed to be two anatomic hearts becoming one? I'm sure there's some symbolism about agape or something or maybe the artist was retarded, who knows?
What I'm wondering is why was Schopenhauer so taken aback by Augustine's pessimism?

>>21318204
From reading this it appears to be some type of ancient archetypal symbol that appears across many different cultures, but not always with the same meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_symbol

>>21318111
>But Augustine’s dogma of Predestination is connected with another dogma, namely, that the mass of humanity is corrupt and doomed to eternal damnation, that very few will be found righteous and attain salvation, and that only in consequence of the gift of grace, and because they are predestined to be saved; whilst the remainder will be overwhelmed by the perdition they have deserved, viz., eternal torment in hell. Taken in its ordinary meaning, the dogma is revolting, for it comes to this: it condemns a man, who may be, perhaps, scarcely twenty years of age, to expiate his errors, or even his unbelief, in everlasting torment; nay, more, it makes this almost universal damnation the natural effect of original sin, and therefore the necessary consequence of the Fall. This is a result which must have been foreseen by him who made mankind, and who, in the first place, made them not better than they are, and secondly, set a trap for them into which he must have known they would fall; for he made the whole world, and nothing is hidden from him. According to this doctrine, then, God created out of nothing a weak race prone to sin, in order to give them over to endless torment. And, as a last characteristic, we are told that this God, who prescribes forbearance and forgiveness of every fault, exercises none himself, but does the exact opposite; for a punishment which comes at the end of all things, when the world is over and done with, cannot have for its object either to improve or deter, and is therefore pure vengeance. So that, on this view, the whole race is actually destined to eternal torture and damnation, and created expressly for this end, the only exception being those few persons who are rescued by election of grace, from what motive one does not know.
Wow what a cuck

>>21318204
>What I'm wondering is why was Schopenhauer so taken aback by Augustine's pessimism?
I think Schopenhauer was still relatively young when he wrote that essay. Mature Schopenhauer's philosophy is virtually one-to-one with that of Mature Augustine's, with atheism being the only distinction.

>>21318229
>It's not fair and God is mean abloobloo

>>21318182
Catholic symbology is pretty gauche, very much artificial and overstated. Even eastern roman halos are better.
Northern Renaissance works are more subtle and artistically tasteful, if you can stomach the stylization.

>>21318229
>And, as a last characteristic, we are told that this God, who prescribes forbearance and forgiveness of every fault, exercises none himself
Uh?

>>21318251
I'm partial to the older art you get before particular artistic traditions became universal. On the whole I don't like iconography, though.

>>21318229
This about sums it up:
>>21318053

>>21318111
Gay

>>21318111
my ancestors

>>21318111
Did Ben Garrison paint this? Pointless label-ass

Catholics can't be misanthropes, its baked into their canon that Jesus is gonna come save all the people that went to Hell eventually.
Now, a chad skeptic of Revelation like me? My interpretation of Christianity is hilariously pessimistic.

>>21318111
>>21318229
I find this really ironic because to me Augustine is immensely hopeful and full of love for God. Yeah, he thinks the great mass of humanity is wicked, sinful, and corrupt. But for Augustine, God loves us anyway, and tries His hardest to save us anyway, and this makes God immensely good and beautiful. And the goodness of God, in turn, redeems the world and the human race that God has made.

Augustine is only "misanthropic" if you don't believe in the Resurrection. Which I suppose Schoppy didn't.

>>21320757
>I find this really ironic because to me Augustine is immensely hopeful and full of love for God.
He's hopeful for a couple lucky people; most are fucked and God more or less desires that they get fucked

>>21320738
>its baked into their canon that Jesus is gonna come save all the people that went to Hell eventually.
This is condemned by every orthodox Christian church.

>>21320757
The pessimism is more in regard to predestination than the wicked masses. It's one thing for there to be a wicked mass, another to be fated to be a wicked mass for the express purpose of eternal torment.

>>21318145
>>21318182
Filthy Prots.

>>21320918
It’s even more obscene because God is omniscient and therefore knew before creating wicked people that they would be wicked and then suffer forever and he still made them anyway. He makes bad people just to torture them and they didn’t even ask to exist in the first place.

>>21320943
What do you think you are in relation to God? Do you have any conception of what it means to be a creature?

>>21320846
>>21320918
>>21320943
Catholics and Orthodox don't have a predestination reading of Augustine, that's only been a thing since Calvin and both the major apostolic Churches reject it.

>>21320952
What you mean to say, is that you reject what Augustine says on this point. It's not some new idea that only cropped in the 1500s.

>>21320950
>What do you think you are in relation to God?
In Augustine’s philosophy: a puppet, a toy, a trifling amusement fashioned out of pure caprice, roughly equivalent to an ant that a sadistic child fries with a magnifying glass. Your purpose as a creature of Augustine’s deity is to be tormented and harassed endlessly, and then get on your knees like a frail battered housewife and thank the source of your misery for not doing even worse.

>Do you have any conception of what it means to be a creature?
To be a creature is fundamentally to be something forced into existence and thrust into a situation without invitation. It means that you are trapped inside and what is outside has all the power. To be a creature is, from a metaphysical perspective in Augustinian theology, a rat in a maze. You have had existence in this world imposed on you mandatorily and losing carries the penalty of eternal pain (winning is potentially worse, unless you’re okay with being made into something that takes pleasure in the sight of your loved ones being tortured) - and except for the rare and arbitrary intervention of the game master, you are destined to fail. There is no escape and there is no other choice. To be a contingent creature is to inhabit a cosmic nightmare.

>>21321018
You are indeed something that is owned by God and can be used by God for whatever purpose he wishes to use you for. That's what an actual God means. Your modern antinatalist consent-based ethics has no bearing on anything.

>>21320963
I'm Catholic. Augustine is one of our Doctors of the Church. We don't read him as supporting predestination.

>>21321025
>You are indeed something that is owned by God and can be used by God for whatever purpose he wishes to use you for. That's what an actual God means.
No. That’s a demon.

>>21321028
I don't care how you read him, I care what he actually says.

>>21321033
Demons are also created beings and have no such power over you, only God does.

>>21321042
Then God is responsible for the acts of all demons? If he controls what they do, are God’s actions not the actions of a devil?

What point is there in worshipping such a being? That it’s powerful? Is “might makes right” the ultimate law of the universe? Would you bow before an all-powerful fiend?

>>21321057
I'm sleepy and don't want to argue anymore. But the answer is that God is good, not as in that he determines what is good by an act of arbitration, but that he is the Good, that his being is goodness itself, as in a Platonic Form. God is his attributes as one singularity with no parts, so things such as Goodness, Holiness, Justice, these things, as One Being, are God. The "evil god" is an oxymoron because an actual God can only be good -- evil is the absence of good, and thus such a god would be an absence of itself. If you are at variance with God then it is your own conscience, perception, or knowledge that are wrong.

>>21321099
>But the answer is that God is good, not as in that he determines what is good by an act of arbitration, but that he is the Good, that his being is goodness itself, as in a Platonic Form. God is his attributes as one singularity with no parts, so things such as Goodness, Holiness, Justice, these things, as One Being, are God. The "evil god" is an oxymoron because an actual God can only be good -- evil is the absence of good, and thus such a god would be an absence of itself. If you are at variance with God then it is your own conscience, perception, or knowledge that are wrong.
None of this actually says that God is “good” as much as it merely states the tautology that good is whatever God does and God does what God does. Since “good” is defined this way from the outset it can mean anything from helping an old lady across the street to setting babies on fire. We’re barreling towards a full modal collapse at this point, but I’ll respect your wish to catch some z’s.

>>21321127
>Since “good” is defined this way from the outset it can mean anything
It can't, look up the transcendentals. It has specific contraries (privatives specifically) that can be deduced in any given context via the essences of things.

When did the trend of calling faggots 'doomers" start?

>>21321028
The Catholic Church teaches predestination.

>>21318111
Did Ben Garrison paint this? Pointless label-ass

Is he trampling on the works of Julian the Apostate?

>>21321405
It's the works of Pelagius and his followers Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum.

>>21321416
Pelagius unironically dindu nuffin

>>21318229

This is litterally the Mesopotamian/Phoenician myth. Humanity serves the Gods for which reason they do not know other than that the gods predestined the world and charted its course through signs like the stars. In fact early semetic christians held mesopotamian astrology into very high regard, before it was condemned by the later church.

>>21321559
Predestination is taught very clearly in the Bible.

>>21321583
But free will and stuff happening that God doesn't want to happen that seem to blatantly grieve and upset Him is also taught so, you have to somehow reconcile these ideas

>>21321602
>stuff happening that God doesn't want to happen
There is a distinction made between 1) God's prescriptive will, which is what he commands others to do, and 2) God's decretive will, which is what he decrees will actually occur.
>that seem to blatantly grieve and upset Him
These are examples of anthropopathy (Num. 23:19).

>>21321611
>There is a distinction made between 1) God's prescriptive will, which is what he commands others to do, and 2) God's decretive will, which is what he decrees will actually occur.
So... God lies?

>>21321618
No, there is a distinction between a command to take some action and whether that action is actually undertaken. I figured you would make this objection about my claim of anthropopathy rather than my first point. I'll go ahead and answer that objection though, as it might help with the former. We do not know things in the way that God knows them, as we are finite creatures. The knowledge we have of God and the things of God is rather analogical, we know things by analogy. There is the archetype of knowledge which exists in God, and then there is the ectype, the reproduction of that knowledge which is condescended to be understandable within the limitations of man. But that archetypal knowledge is condescended for us by God himself in the Scriptures. He himself is the author of the analogy for us, and thus the analogy is true and trustworthy. But it should be remembered that it is not the exhaustive, infinite understanding that God has, which is beyond our mortal capacity.

>>21321627
I'm speaking from a Reformed (Calvinist) perspective by the way. I don't know whether the things I'm saying here could be found in modern Catholic texts.

>>21321627
>No, there is a distinction between a command to take some action and whether that action is actually undertaken.
You have shifted the goalposts; you implied previously that God actively decreed things that were against his will to happen whereas now you've softened the point and seem to have ceded that there are things that happen that God doesn't will

Regardless, it's pretty blatantly a lie for God to say that things "didn't enter his mind" when he literally decreed them to happen, or for him to claim that he has "longed to gather" Jerusalem under him when he really has predestined them to go astray; this is obviously absurd two-faced behavior and presents a picture of a deity that says one thing and does another, that claims to despise evil despite being the cause of it all - as a certain someone said, it is better to let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no" than to become mired in this ridiculous Calvinist pilpul of God having two separate contradictory wills

You went into a tangent about a bunch of other shit that doesn't have anything to do with the conversation but none of it's really relevant to the point so I'll ignore it

>>21321648
>you implied previously that God actively decreed things that were against his will to happen
If he decrees something to happen, then it is his will that it happen -- otherwise he would not decree it -- but in what sense? That is why the distinction between prescriptive and decretive will is important.

>whereas now you've softened the point and seem to have ceded that there are things that happen that God doesn't will
Indeed he does not will that anyone disobey his commands, but again, in what sense? In my first post I was talking about the distinctions in God's will and in the second I was only referring to the distinction between a command and a command being obeyed. I did not intend to seem like I was changing my position.

>Regardless, it's pretty blatantly a lie for God to say that things "didn't enter his mind" when he literally decreed them to happen, or for him to claim that he has "longed to gather" Jerusalem under him when he really has predestined them to go astray ...
Rather than go into the weeds of this, l would ask you why do you think God acts in any particular way? What is the purpose for which man exists? If you understand these properly then it should assuage your objections here.

>You went into a tangent about a bunch of other shit that doesn't have anything to do with the conversation but none of it's really relevant to the point so I'll ignore it
It is relevant, as it shows that we're only discussing the matter analogically, because in its archetypal truth it is something incomprehensible to the finite human mind.

>>21321664
Your mode of thinking demonstrates to me why Calvinism is an absurd system that demands the performance of insane mental gymnastics to resolve its blatantly nonsensical claims

Everything requires hairsplitting and wordgames because 99% of Calvinists are unable to admit that the thing they worship does things so awful that if it were under any other name we'd call it "Satan"

>>21321675
You simply do not have a correct conception of God. You put man first, before God's glory.